============================================================================ Addendum Issue# 15 - 17th March 2002 URL: http://www.adden.tr.cx/ Author : Phoenix, like the bird. =========================== The phoenix is back ============================ Phoenix: When I first got into the Dungeons and Dragons world, one mighty creature gained my attention, a monster so proud and deadly that the very mention of its name would have the most STALWART Level 12 Dwarfish (to employ the Tolkienesque mode of speech) Turnip/Mage shivering in his/her Cursed Glowing Indestructible Jade Boots of Constitution Endowment. However, I'd look like a tit calling myself The Kobold, and my second favourite (The Halfling) wasn't particularly awe-inspiring either. After much soul-searching I decided to call myself: The Phoenix! Sadly, I soon found out that there are other nerds out there, and my beloved psuedonym had already been plagiarised before I had "invented" it. So, in a flash of illumination (actually, a Great Light Spell Scroll) I decided on a slight alteration, and became the: The Red Phoenix! followed by: The Blazing Phoenix! and: The Original Phoenix 2. When TheOriginalPhoenixII@aol.com flamed me and suggested I change to The Original Phoenix 3 I decided, bugger it all, I'll just be the Phoenix. Hi. I'm Just The Phoenix. ---------------------------------------------------------- The Phoenix is a mystical bird in Greek mythology. It was derived from the benu, from Egyptian mythology. There are similar fabled creatures in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Indian mythology. As the story generally goes, there was (or is, who knows?) only ever ONE phoenix alive at a time. This miraculous bird lived between 500 to 97,200 years, and was gold or red in colour. It was NOT made of fire; this is a very modern embellishment to the fable. However at the end of its life-span the phoenix, burdened with knowledge and tired of life, would sit on its funeral pyre and spread aloft its wings, to be consumed by the Sun's rays. From the ashes of the old phoenix would spring a new, and so the cycle of life continues (and, of course, the spiral of death also). This unique form of reproduction has never before been observed in any avian, suggesting that the phoenix is in fact NOT a bird whatsoever but a winged eucalyptus tree. Makes sense, really. -------------------------------------------------------- This document is now going to be biographicalish. I'm approximately this tall, and about so broad, and I don't weigh too much. I'm not particularly over-endowed physically whatever that might have to do with anything. Intellectually I'm not quite a genius, but almost. Or perhaps, unlike my pecs, my opinion of myself is over-inflated and unwieldy. I will take this point to remind everybody that you can't trust somebody describing themself over the net: I may be a gorgeous, well-endowed male underwear model with bulging... trapezia and NOT an ineffectual, weedy, pizza-faced nerd with the charisma of the Balrog and a palliative appearance. Just imagine me as you will. --------------------------------------------------------- I'm a tertiary student at a tertiary institute studying tertiary things. Which institute and which course will remain a subject of controversy. When I'm famous and comfortably employed I don't wish anything I write here to repeat on me like over-the-use-by-date Sweet-and- Sour-Pork Special Number 17 with Prawn Crackers. This is because I hate Things. Lots of Things. Consequently lots of Things hate me. This hurts me; all I want is to be loved, and thus embittered I only hate more Things. Ad infinitum. One thing I don't hate is music. I listen to lots of music. I have music for sleeping and music for waking (more waking music than sleeping for reasons that will eventually become less unclear), music for walking and music for sitting around wishing I had the energy for walking so I could listen to my walking music. As my walkman is broken and I don't want a discman it means I either turn the stereo up REAL loud or limit my walks to my flat. I listen to music while on the phone, off the phone, and doing the dishes. Among my favourite music is: Brahms, Beethoven, the Beatles, the Bee-Gees and Faith No More. Especially, however, Brahms. If you haven't done a Hungarian Dance you don't realise what you're missing. I'm not actually too sure how the Hungarian Dances go, but I like to make them up in the kitchen while doing the dishes, Brahms' Hungarian Dances being my favourite motivational so-the-dishes music. My brother often tells me that it's the GREEK dances that involve breaking plates, but I'm simply employing artistic license AND clearing up the dishes quicker. ----------------------------------------------------------- I also don't hate animals. ----------------------------------------------------------- Except cats, wombats and sheep. ----------------------------------------------------------- I have difficulty sleeping at night. I've had any number of diagnoses for my insomnia - I've been told I drink too much coffee, I'm nocturnal or that I'm just abnormal. I believe it's psychological. I think I'm urnal-retentive. ----------------------------------------------------------- One thing I adore is a good pun. A bad one is alright, too. I learnt to pun from the Marx Bros at a very young age, and have always had a love of playing with words. What's worse, I cheat. ----------------------------------------------------------- I enjoy: Books. Books. Books. I'm on the national bibliophile register. I'm not allowed to teach in Primary School libraries. Taking computers apart. I know the PC inside out. I'm still not quite comfortable with putting the inside in yet. A nice female calf. I mean calf as in heel, not veal. Foreign films, old comedies, Monty Python, Terry Gilliam, queer turnip-sex flicks, and The Young Ones. And Daria. Dusty Springfield. ---------------------------------------------------------- I DON'T enjoy: Stepping on rusty nails. Being indicted, charged and sodomised for crimes I didn't commit. Or ones I did. Turnips. Seagulls. ------------------------------------------------------------ I believe: Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Plagiarism is hero worship. UNIX is the best OS coz it has balls. I wet myself too often; I must have retention- deficit-disorder. Ted Turner is an alien in disguise. Michael Jackson is an alien out of disguise. George Dubya Bush is a turnip. Ossama bin Laden used a valid, though somewhat alternative, medium of international communication on September the 11th. The number of dead (just or unjust) from that operation still fails to approach the number of needless, avoidable deaths America has caused in war and peace in pursuit of wealth and geopolitical happiness. AND I HATE THE TREND TO CALL IT 9/11. FOR AS LONG AS AMERICA (AND FOR THAT MATTER EVERYBODY) CONTINUES TO SIMPLIFY AND SANITISE MAJOR ISSUES BY REDUCING THEM TO RIDICULOUS CATCHPHRASES AND ABSURDLY TWO-DIMENSIONAL GOODvEVIL AXIOMS THEN BUILDINGS WILL CONTINUE TO FALL, EMBASSIES WILL CONTINUE TO BLOW UP, AND NOTHING WILL BE SOLVED. This is just as applicable to Islamist fundamentalists as it is to Americanist fundamentalists, such as Dubya. ============================================================================ Addendum Issue# 15 - 17th march 2002 (C) phoenix March 2002 ============================================================================